Hey Ram: A Powerful Review of Kamal Haasan's Masterpiece

Calcutta, 1946. The city is burning in the fires of the Direct Action Day riots. Saketh Ram (Kamal Haasan), a quiet, secular-minded archaeologist, loses his wife Aparna (Rani Mukerji) in a brutal attack. Grief curdles into rage. He watches his country tear itself apart along religious lines and hears Gandhi’s calls for peace as the naïve bleating of an old man who only makes things worse.

Saketh becomes convinced that Gandhi’s policies and philosophy are responsible for the bloodshed. He begins to plot the Mahatma’s assassination - a mission that takes him across the subcontinent, through the chaos of Partition, and into the company of both amoral politicians and true believers. Along the way, we see his past: his first marriage to the progressive, fierce Mythili (Vasundhara Das), his friendship with the Muslim Amjad Ali Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), and his slow drift from a man of reason into a man of vengeance. The story spirals toward January 30, 1948, the day of Gandhi’s actual assassination - except in this version, a different hand might hold the gun.

To call Hey Ram ambitious is an understatement. Kamal Haasan wrote, directed, produced, and starred in this film, and he treats the canvas of Partition-era India with the gravity it deserves. The film is framed as a confession - Saketh Ram, old and dying, unspools his memories to a friend. This structure allows the narrative to jump back and forth in time, weaving personal tragedy with public catastrophe. The nonlinear storytelling is not just stylistic; it mirrors the fractured psychology of a man who has lost every anchor in his life.

Visually, the film is austere and beautiful. Cinematographer and editor (Haasan himself, under a pseudonym) use muted colours, deep shadows, and long, patient takes. There are no flashy action sequences. The riot scenes are horrifying in their realism - handheld cameras, screaming crowds, the sound of breaking glass and of people’s lives. The violence is never gratuitous; it is presented as the irreversible damage it is.

Kamal Haasan’s performance as Saketh Ram is a masterclass in controlled fury and quiet implosion. He does not play the character as a villain, nor as a tragic hero. He plays him as a man gradually becoming a stranger to himself. His eyes shift from warmth to coldness over the course of the film. Shah Rukh Khan, in a rare supporting role before his superstardom, is excellent as Amjad - his character’s arc is brief but devastating. Hema Malini brings a layered, dignified sorrow to Ambujam, Saketh’s second wife. Naseeruddin Shah’s Gandhi is neither a saint nor a caricature; he is a shrewd, frail, deeply human figure, and his scenes with Haasan crackle with ideological tension.

The film’s greatest strength is its moral complexity. Hey Ram does not endorse Saketh’s actions. It does not trivialize Gandhi, either. Instead, it puts the two in a room together: one man who believes in nonviolence at any cost, another who believes that nonviolence has already cost everything. The film refuses to pick sides, yet it is never morally relativistic. It simply insists that we understand the road that leads a good man to a terrible decision.

The runtime - 199 minutes - is daunting. Some middle stretches, especially the scenes in the southern village with Mythili’s family, could have been trimmed. The film’s pace is deliberate, almost glacial at times. But that is the point. Hey Ram wants you to sit in the discomfort, to feel the weight of history, the long silences before a bullet leaves the chamber.

The music, composed by Ilaiyaraaja, is haunting. The title song “Hey Ram” - a plea to a God who seems absent - becomes a leitmotif for the film’s search for meaning in madness. The background score is sparse, letting ambient sound and silence do the work.

Pros

• Kamal Haasan’s layered, career-best performance as a man undone by grief and ideology.
• Stunningly realistic period re-creation of 1940s Calcutta and the Partition chaos.
• Moral complexity that refuses to simplify Gandhi, violence, or nationalism.
• Naseeruddin Shah’s Gandhi is a revelation - human, not hagiographic.
• Haunting music and sound design that heighten the emotional gravity.

Cons

• The 199-minute runtime will test even patient viewers; the middle act drags.
• Some Tamil-dialogue scenes (in the original Tamil version) suffer from uneven dubbing in the Hindi cut.
• The nonlinear structure can be confusing for viewers not familiar with the historical timeline.
• A few supporting characters (like Vasundhara Das’s Mythili) feel underwritten in the second half.

Hey Ram is not for everyone. It is long, grim, and asks its audience to sit with uncomfortable questions. But for those willing to engage, it offers one of the most profound cinematic explorations of hatred, history, and humanity ever attempted in Indian film. Kamal Haasan balanced the personal and the political with a tightrope walker’s precision. At a time when cinema often sanitizes or weaponizes history, Hey Ram refuses to do either. It is a cry of anguish, a search for meaning, and ultimately - despite everything - a plea for peace. A flawed masterpiece? Perhaps. But a masterpiece nonetheless.